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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'She can&apos;t see me for me',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2019/03/31.jpg" alt="A pink tree" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="religion">
	<h2>Religion</h2>
	<p>
		It seems that during the fifth Sunday of the month, if such a Sunday exists, dosn&apos;t involve segregating the men and the women for the second half of the meeting.
		Instead, young are separated from old, but that&apos;s it.
		Also, it seems that a big meeting, called the General Conference, is taking place next Sunday.
		For some reason, that means church is cancelled that week.
		And for some reason, Fast Sunday has to take place on the same day as a church meeting.
		SO Fast Sunday for the coming month was moved to today.
		I missed it, as I&apos;d been told it was the first Sunday of every month, and wasn&apos;t given any sort of exceptions.
		So I missed Fast Sunday this time.
	</p>
	<p>
		I noticed a while ago that the people carrying the sacrament, who I now know to be the deacons, never ate or drank from their own trays.
		After serving the congregation, they line up and one of them serves the others.
		Then one of the others serves the one.
		It seemed odd to me at the time, but I figured it was just part of the ritual.
		I see something else now though.
		This is likely similar to how an elder can&apos;t bless themself.
		They have to get another elder to do it.
		Similarly, maybe taking the sacrament from one&apos;s own tray doesn&apos;t count, and they need another deacon to serve them.
	</p>
	<p>
		Today&apos;s meeting was a testimony meeting.
		I got the impression Fast Sundays usually are.
		Most of the testimonies just consisted of mis-attributions.
		Members of the congregation claimed Jesus had helped them in the form of various events that were much easier to explain using the mundane, rather than the supernatural.
		Still, there were some gems in the testimonies as well.
		I always expect to hear interesting things on these testimony days, then everyone talks about the mundane until I figure nothing of interest will be said, and <strong>*that&apos;s*</strong> when people start bringing up the good stuff.
		The first thing of interest is that you will be blessed or you will be cursed.
		There&apos;s no middle ground.
		If you follow Jesus&apos; every word like a lapdog, he&apos;ll bless you, but if you don&apos;t, you&apos;ll suffer his wrath in the form of curses.
		There&apos;s no middle ground with him.
		Another important point brought up is that nothing offends Elohim more than not getting credit for things.
		Wow.
		He&apos;s an omnipotent being, and <strong>*that&apos;s*</strong> what ruffles his feathers?
		But on top of that, he&apos;s not even doing much at his point.
		He &quot;acts through Jesus&quot;, which is a fancy way of saying he has Jesus do all his work for him.
		My understanding is that Elohim should get credit for creating our souls (assuming he even existed), but that&apos;s all.
		Everything else was done by Jesus.
		In fact, it sounds like Jesus is the one that created the heavens and the earth, and even came up with the plan of &quot;salvation&quot; the Mormons are so thankful for.
		All the miracles, both amazing and mundane, are also performed by Jesus.
		Elohim is all but irrelevant on this planet.
		Another member brought up the brainwashing of the primary songs, though they didn&apos;t actually see it as brainwashing.
		Still, someone that&apos;d been inactive in the church for decades still knew all the words to the songs they&apos;d learned in primary.
		And I still have that one verse from a primary song rattling away in my head, even though I&apos;ve only heard it on two occasions.
		Oh, and by the way, the tune&apos;s back now, not just the words.
		The second day they went over the song, the tune was put back in my head and I haven&apos;t been able to get rid of it since.
		Songs are a very effective way to force words and ideas into someone&apos;s mind.
	</p>
	<p>
		So for the second half of the meeting on a fifth Sunday, it seems the bishop of the ward usually chooses what happens.
		The schedule is set up that on the first and third Sundays, one thing happens, while for the second and fourth Sundays, they do something else.
		Having a fifth Sunday in the month throws a wrench in things, and instead of going with the obvious solution of using an every-other-week schedule instead of a first/second/third/fourth schedule, they just have the bishop do his thing on the fifth Sunday when one comes up.
		I say &quot;his&quot; and not &quot;their&quot; in this context because only men are allowed to be bishops in this sexist church.
		So even though I don&apos;t typically use gendered pronouns to refer to people that are mostly anonymous in this journal, it&apos;s clear that the bishop is a dude.
		Anyway, this time, the church&apos;s president sent a request to the bishop that he spend either this fifth Sunday or the one in June talking about financial self-sufficiency.
		He chose this Sunday.
		If I were in his shoes, I would have done the same thing.
		He believes the president to be a prophet; a mouthpiece for the omnipotent being the bishop warships.
		If that being has something he wants talked about, it&apos;s probably a good idea to get the word out as soon as feasible.
		It might be important, and even besides, doing as asked right away could even be just a gesture of respect.
	</p>
	<p>
		He started out talking not about finance, but other things that need to be done to strengthen the church.
		Briefly, he covered some numbers he&apos;d like to see in the coming year.
		It was quick, and fairly mundane.
		I wouldn&apos;t even mention it, but he brought up the fact that the number of convert baptisms had &quot;dipped&quot; last year, over the year prior.
		I don&apos;t know if his word choice was intentional, but it was hilarious.
		It seems though that convert baptisms are one of the benchmarks they use to measure their success though.
		That&apos;s likely why the missionaries wanted me to get baptised even before understanding the implications.
		I&apos;m a number to them, at least on some level.
		I&apos;m not a very easy number to get though, ha ha.
		That said, another number looked at was church attendance, and I&apos;ve been adding to that number lately.
	</p>
	<p>
		As for financial self-sufficiency, the first thing I noticed on the paper they handed out was that the first step was to pay your tithes and offerings.
		Seriously?
		The first step to being financially stable is to give money away.
		Eliminating your debt was the third stage, setting up an emergency fund for you and your family was the second stage, and saving and investing for the future was the fourth step.
		Wow.
		That&apos;s a bit mixed up.
		The only step they got right was the final step, which is to help others and be charitable.
		That indeed should come after everything else.
		If you&apos;re not stable yet, how can you afford to give money away, such as to the church?
		Paying tithes and offerings should be the second-to-final stage.
		Personally, I&apos;d place eliminating debt before getting an emergency find if you can, but I can easily see why having the emergency find first would be a better idea.
		My way is a gamble, and either pays off or causes you great harm.
		Why risk it?
		By all means, get the emergency fund first.
		You&apos;ll be safer and have peace of mind.
		But both eliminating debt and setting up an emergency fund need to come before donating your money to the church.
		Someone in the congregation, who was in full agreement with the step order, admitted that to outsiders, it would seem illogical to donate to the church before any of these things.
		Darn right it seems highly illogical to me, as an outsider.
		They went on to claim though that when they personally pay their tithes, their life is so much better, while when they think they can&apos;t and don&apos;t, their life tends to be worse.
		Several other members agreed with this.
		However, if you look at it, it&apos;s the times when they&apos;re most in need that they aren&apos;t able to pay tithes.
		It&apos;s the hardships that cause them not to pay, not the lack of paying that brings them hardships.
	</p>
	<p>
		Finally, I learned more about tithes, as well as the concept of fast offerings, which I hadn&apos;t heard of until today.
		Tithes are meant to be ten percent of your income.
		The more you make, the more you&apos;re expected to pay.
		I guess it&apos;s sort of like a tax, except actually a bit more fair.
		You don&apos;t get a tax break for being wealthy, unlike the taxes issued by the government of this country.
		As for fast offerings, it seems you&apos;re supposed to calculate the cost of the meals you didn&apos;t eat on Fast Sunday, then donate that to the church along with your tithes.
		It&apos;s a way to get a little more money into the church, while framing it as a giving up of food for a day instead of a request for a little more in tithing funds.
	</p>
	<p>
		Oh, also, a passage about fasting was quoted to us.
		I&apos;m not sure if it was about fasting in general, or if it was actually about fasting and donating the funds saved.
		Either way, it was said that it should be done at least once each month.
		That was all.
		There was nothing about specific days to do it.
		There&apos;s no particular reason to have everyone fast on the same day.
		I&apos;ll talk to the missionaries about it if I remember, but it sounds like there&apos;s no need for me to try to schedule it for parts of my month that don&apos;t often work well for me.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="mother">
	<h2>Dealing with my mother</h2>
	<p>
		I was actually in the process of drafting a new letter to my mother to replace the one I&apos;ve had in the queue, when she actually came over.
		I was nude though, about to take a shower when I finished the letter.
		I knew that if I was going to talk to her now, I needed to shower first because the talk would run long and I&apos;d miss getting the sweat off my body before putting on my work clothing.
		I&apos;d really regret it, and chaff badly at work.
		So I pretty much ignored my hair and using any soap, and took about three minutes.
		My mother nearly left, seeing I was busy, so I blurted out that I&apos;ve been trying to talk to her since December, and asked that she please not leave.
		So she stayed.
		She said I didn&apos;t need to rush the shower, but really, I did.
	</p>
	<p>
		We talked, and she just can&apos;t get past attaching a gender to people during every conversation in which said people are even mentioned, even when their gender is irrelevant.
		In fact, she claims that someone&apos;s gender is <strong>*always*</strong> relevant.
		And she can&apos;t accept that gender and sex aren&apos;t the same thing.
		Of course, that translates to her thinking that if you talk about someone shovelling snow on their walkway, what sex organs they have between their legs is somehow relevant to the conversation.
	</p>
	<p>
		I guess I&apos;ve already figured out my next steps though.
		She claims it&apos;s disrespectful to refer to someone using neuter pronouns even if they desperately want it, which is why she won&apos;t call me a &quot;they&quot;.
		Personally, I think it&apos;s impersonal to refer to someone by a title rather than a name (or even a nickname).
		And I think it&apos;s stupid to behave in an impersonal manner toward someone you supposedly are close to.
		It&apos;s not a respect issue, but I can certainly frame it as one long enough to get my point across.
		It&apos;s pretty dumb that people don&apos;t have their children call them by their actual names instead of their titles as &quot;Mom&qupt; and &quot;Dad&quot;.
		She&apos;s also made it rather clear that it&apos;s more important that you get to call people what you want to rather than get called what you want to be called.
		I don&apos;t think she understands the implications: that if you can call people whatever you want, they can call you whatever <strong>*they*</strong> want.
		It&apos;s only fair.
		It&apos;s going to make her uneasy, and has a slim chance of outright pissing her off, but I&apos;m going to start calling her by her actual name like I&apos;ve always thought was what children should do.
		It could drive a wedge between us further, or it could get her to understand what she&apos;s actually saying when she insists on asserting her right to call me what she sees me as.
	</p>
	<p>
		Of course, the real problem is that she refuses to see me for anything but my genitals.
		Insisting that I&apos;m a man is only a symptom of that.
	</p>
	<p>
		Here in my journal, I&apos;ll refer to her by her codename: Summer.
		For privacy, there&apos;s no reason to broadcast her real name in this public journal.
		As for why I chose that name: she sort of chose it herself.
		She uses the name &quot;Summer&quot; in certain contexts in which she wants a greater level of privacy than she&apos;d otherwise have.
	</p>
	<p>
		I also won&apos;t be going anywhere in public any more for the time being.
		It&apos;s not a pleasant experience being called a &quot;he&quot; everywhere we go together.
		I&apos;ll only see here at my home and hers.
		Even in these two places though, I won&apos;t do holidays with her any more.
		She knows I believe holidays to be arbitrary, and pointless to celebrate.
		I do it anyway for her.
		Or rather, I did.
		If she can&apos;t even have the basic respect to stop misgendering me, I don&apos;t see why I should play along with her holiday garbage any more.
		To scare her a bit, I&apos;m going to label anything on my calendar that isn&apos;t here at home as &quot;treatment&quot;, too.
		I already put things in code when I don&apos;t want her involved.
		I&apos;ve been using codes that somewhat relate to the actual event, but if she thinks I have a medical issue ... maybe she&apos;ll be fearful enough to do what it takes to get closer.
		Maybe she&apos;ll think the fact we&apos;ve drifted apart actually is a problem.
		It was a problem I&apos;d hoped I could fix, but I&apos;m not the only one in this relationship, so I can&apos;t do it alone.
		I can&apos;t force her to accept me.
		I can only try talking with her and try refusing to talk with her.
	</p>
	<p>
		Unfortunately, in my haste, I couldn&apos;t find the key to my bedroom and had to lock myself out while my mother was here.
		Then I needed to let myself back in while she was still here, so I could get dressed.
		I had no choice but to pull my spare bedroom key out of its hiding place.
		She wasn&apos;t looking, but she might have heard where I got it out from.
		The lock&apos;s there specifically to keep <strong>*her*</strong> out, so I couldn&apos;t risk he knowing where it was.
		I locked the spare in my bedroom as I left for work, knowing I&apos;d need to find a new hiding spot when I returned.
		I&apos;ve found an even better place, if I do say so myself.
		It&apos;s absolutely devious.
		She won&apos;t be finding the key any time soon, that&apos;s for sure.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
